The Apple Watch May Secretly Be Capable of Measuring Your Blood Oxygen Level

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Posted April 26, 2015 at 6:20am by iClarified

A teardown of the Apple Watch has revealed that it contains a plethysmograph rather than just a sensor which just measures heart rate, reports iFixit.

Apple's heart rate monitor is actually a plethysmograph—it looks and acts like a pulse oximeter, but Apple isn’t claiming it can measure your blood oxygen level. Why? Beats us.

A pulse oximeter measures the difference between levels of the red pigment hemoglobin that carry oxygen in your blood. Oxygenated hemoglobin and nonoxygenated hemoglobin are different colors. The pulse oximeter uses two light-emitting diodes. One sends out invisible infrared light and the other sends out red light. By measuring the differences of light absorbed by each type of hemoglobin, the oxy/deoxyhemoglobin ratio can be calculated.

Typically, healthy individuals at sea level have oxygen saturation values between 96% and 99%. If that dropped to 65% you would experience mental impairment and a level below 55% would likely cause a loss of consciousness.

It's unclear why Apple has yet to enable this functionality in the Apple Watch. FDA regulations may be an issue or the company may be planning to surprise with the feature in a software update.

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The Apple Watch May Secretly Be Capable of Measuring Your Blood Oxygen Level

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Lee - April 27, 2015 at 1:01am

The Withings Pulse was the same way. Measured pulse only at first then when they gotFDA approval they issued a firmware update that enabled the oximeter.

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Fadi Amawi - April 26, 2015 at 6:15pm

There is also important parameters can be measured but until now it's patent to Masimo Co. ( read more about rainbow technology ) it can measure hemoglobin level without taking sample of blood as well as carbon monoxide ( SPCO ) which is important in fire cases which regular pulse oximetry will show to you that oxygen level is 100% but actually it's carbon monoxide not oxygen which will kill patient

NoGoodNick - April 27, 2015 at 4:00pm

Yes, Apple designed it to monitor these things, but they halted implementing them because they determined the results were not particularly good. The technology simply doesn't exist to RELIABLY test such things through the skin. It's a cute technology that's not yet ready for prime time. I too was looking forward to a continual blood glucose monitor, but it's just not to be.

SayingWhatEveryonesThinking - April 26, 2015 at 3:31pm

The only reason I would start wearing a watch again would be to track blood sugar levels and other health monitors like this one. Make it work independent from the iPhone and a little thinner and I'm in. Otherwise wearing a watch sucks.

gamerscul9870 - April 26, 2015 at 2:00pm

This watch does have much thought put into it as it acts.

Dribble - April 26, 2015 at 1:32pm

Maybe they realized that everyone who bought a watch would have oxygen levels of 56% and didn't want the rest of us to think their pulse oximeters were faulty. Just conscious enough to make the purchase.

H. Michael Young - April 26, 2015 at 10:43am

For a device to be used for medical purposes, it must go through a process - a time intensive, expensive process with the FDA to get the device certified for its intended use. As suggested in this post, I can assume that either Apple is in the process of getting that feature certified, or they will at some point in the future. At one point Apple touted that the watch could also measure glucose levels (blood sugar), but later that feature was abandoned, probably for the same reasons. BUT - this is all speculation. Perhaps, while we are speculating, that this device is indeed being used to collect data on Apple clients without our knowledge? Hmmm?

Emirerlsn - April 26, 2015 at 8:21am

Maybe there can be a lack of OS which is occuring a problem. Like, the watch has the sensors but OS doesn't provide it to use it. Apple would develope an upcoming OS to provide it, I guess…

Dalle - April 26, 2015 at 8:16am

Probably not reliable or accurate enough ... yet!

Edward H. Davis II - April 26, 2015 at 8:10am

That could be good for me...

Edward H. Davis II - April 26, 2015 at 8:22am

I believe that hrm (Heart Rate Monitoring) could be used to reveal a few things about each watch wearer. 1. Toxin levels, immune system status. 2. Sick notifyer of bodily code.

Donell - April 26, 2015 at 7:13am

I don't know why I want it but I do.